Common Core … robust … rigorous academic standards … global economy … 21st century workplace … competitive … college-ready … Duplicitous buzzwords ad nauseum, we’ve heard them ten thousand times in the barrage of press releases about Common Core. And every one is bogus.
The ideals of “rigorous standards” make good sound bites, but they come with almost pathological standardized testing demands, curricular overhaul, and the use of these standardized tests to rate teachers. These pedagogical partners in crime are not written into the Common Core, but they are part of the requirements that states must follow in order to receive the bait of federal dollars. Each appendage of Common Core is somewhere between deeply problematic and disastrous.
First, the standardized tests. Like the old ad — “Show me the beef” — I say, show me the research. Where is the independent research that supports these standards and the standardized tests that will follow? Results of these tests correlate primarily with socioeconomic status. And in fact, independent research soundly trashes the value of such standardized testing to show any actual learning.
Claims that Common Core nourish “critical thinking” are an exercise in delusion. So far, the sample test questions look pretty much like the old, highly criticized, standardized test questions. U.S. taxpayers paid over $350 million for development of these tests, and school districts will pick up the tab for the infrastructure necessary for their implementation. (In fact, I say, “Follow the money,” and we’ll find the true purpose of Common Core.)
Second, part of the argument for national standards is the idea that students who move during the school year from one school system to another won’t be behind the other students. In other words, all classrooms across the country will be on the same page (literally) at the same time. That idea sounds good on paper if we’re talking about safety regulations for widgets instead of the education of kids, who bring with them an infinite panorama of diverse challenges and gifts.
But it destroys the creativity and spontaneity of the very best teachers. “No, kids, sorry—we can’t pay attention to that bird in the window. Right now we’re focusing on ‘ask(ing) and answer(ing) questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.’”
Mind you, I’m an English teacher, and I don’t believe that understanding texts is a bad thing (although if the materials my daughter has brought home to practice textual understanding are an indication of what Common Core minions create — oh, my, such shallow, often incorrect thinking). I just want my daughters and students to be filled with those serendipitous moments that are the cornerstone of the thrill of learning. Without hesitation, I can say that in my three decades of teaching, the very best choices I’ve made have been the times when something engaging and unexpected came up in class and I swept my lesson plan out with the dust.
Kids come into the world as veritable learning monsters. If I as a parent and teacher can help the young ones in my care hold onto the joy of learning, then all the rest will follow. I repeat: All the rest will follow. I’ve seen it happen over and over again, and I’m talking about kids in the poorest parts of town.
As for grading teachers based on student scores on standardized tests that tell us nothing about true learning — the idea of a “value-added” model of evaluation is so fundamentally specious and flawed that assessment experts across the nation have consistently trounced it for reasons of validity, instability, and lack of capacity to deal with the vast multiplex of factors affecting children and their learning. It’s a scam to get rid of teachers who really care about children and replace them with script-reading robots.
The schools and teachers we need don’t teach standards. They teach kids.
Cindy Lutenbacher is a teacher and DeKalb County public school parent.
